e Hand that
makes everything.

Men the least exercised in reasoning, and the most tenacious of the
prejudices of the senses, may yet with one look discover Him who has
drawn Himself in all His works. The wisdom and power He has stamped upon
everything He has made are seen, as it were, in a glass by those that
cannot contemplate Him in His own idea. This is a sensible and popular
philosophy, of which any man free from passion and prejudice is capable.

If a great number of men of subtle and penetrating wit have not
discovered God with one cast of the eye upon nature, it is not matter of
wonder, for either the passions they have been tossed by have still
rendered them incapable of any fixed reflection, or the false prejudices
that result from passions have, like a thick cloud, interposed between
their eyes and that noble spectacle.

A man deeply concerned in an affair of great importance, that should
take up all the attention of his mind, might pass several days in a room
treating about his concerns without taking notice of the proportions of
the chamber, the ornaments of the chimney, and the pictures about him,
all of which objects would continually be before his eyes, and yet none
of them make any impression upon him. In this manner it is that men
spend their lives. Everything offers God to their sight, and yet they
see Him nowhere.

They pass away their lives without perceiving that sensible
representation of the Deity. Such is the fascination of worldly trifles
that obscure their eyes. Nay, oftentimes they will not so much as open
them, but rather affect to keep them shut, lest they should find Him
they do not look for. In short, what ought to help most to open their
eyes serves only to close them faster. I mean the constant duration and
regularity of the motions which the Supreme Wisdom has put in the
universe.

But, after all, whole nature shows the infinite art of its Maker. When I
speak of an art, I mean a collection of proper means chosen on purpose
to arrive at a certain end; or, if you please, it is an order, a method,
an industry, or a set design. Chance, on the contrary, is a blind and
necessary cause, which neither sets in order nor chooses anything, and
has neither will nor understanding. Now, I maintain that the universe
bears the character and stamp of a cause infinitely powerful and
industrious; and, at the same time, that chance--that is, the fortuitous
concourse of causes void of reason--cannot h